Wednesday, June 11, 2014

He was thinking more of private sector, faith-based initiatives

A Republican candidate for the Oklahoma state House who boasts that he's looking forward to "applying Biblical principles to Oklahoma law" is okay with gay people being stoned to death -- even if he won't legislate the practice himself.

MooreDaily.com, a local news website, surfaced a series of Scott Esk's Facebook posts in a story published Tuesday. The posts, dated July 2013, cited scripture in response to an article on Pope Francis telling reporters "Who am I to judge gay people?"

"Men were commanded to put guilty parties to death who were guilty of certain acts, like homosexuality," Esk wrote, according to screenshots archived by the news site.

“So just to be clear, you think we should execute homosexuals (presumably by stoning)?” another commenter asked.

"I think we would be totally in the right to do it," Esk replied. "That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.”